"Yes?" said Hetty. "Then you like him?"
Miss Schuyler shook her head. "No. I fancied he was clever, and he didn't
come up to my expectations. You see, he was too obvious."
"About Larry?"
"Yes. Are you not just a little inconsistent, Hetty?"
Miss Torrance laughed. "I don't know," she said. "I am, of course, quite
angry with Larry, but nobody else has a right to abuse him."
Flora Schuyler said nothing further, and while she sat in thoughtful
silence Clavering walked down the hall with Hetty's maid. He was a
well-favoured man, and the girl was vain. She blushed when he looked down
on her with a trace of admiration in his smile.
"You like the prairie?" he said.
She admitted that she was pleased with what she had seen of it, and
Clavering's assumed admiration became bolder.
"Well, it's a good country, and different from the East," he said. "There
are a good many more dollars to be picked up here, and pretty women are
quite scarce. They usually get married right off to a rancher. Now I guess
you came out to better yourself. It takes quite a long time to get rich
down East."
The girl blushed again, and when she informed him that she had a crippled
sister who was a charge on the family, Clavering smiled as he drew on a
leather glove.
"You'll find you have struck the right place," he said. "Now I wonder if
you could fix a pin or something in this button shank. It's coming off,
you see."
The girl did it, and when he went out found a bill lying on the table
where he had been standing. The value of it somewhat astonished her, but
after a little deliberation she put it in her pocket.
"If he doesn't ask for it when he comes back I'll know he meant me to keep
it," she said.